My lovely sister sent me some wonderful smelling whole Vanilla Beans. I stored them in an air-tight zip lock bag and the aroma of them still filled the house! I can not walk past the pantry with out smelling their sweet fragrance. Its absolutely wonderful. This is my first experience with whole vanilla beans and I can not wait to use them in more of my cooking! She suggested that I use one of them to make some vanilla sugar since I love my coffees and teas sweetened. Thank you sister 🙂

Ingredients:

1 vanilla bean, whole or scraped

2 cups granulated sugar

Directions

If vanilla bean is whole, slice down side of bean with back of knife and scrape seeds into airtight container with the sugar. Bury bean in sugar and seal tightly with lid. Let sit for 1 to 2 weeks. Use as regular, granulated sugar.

Sorry, I’ve been MIA for the past week but things here have been a bit hectic. I hope you all had a great week.

Here are some of the eats I’ve been making/eating for the past week.

The cinnamon bread below is from the cookbook The Bread Baker’s apprentice. I have not gotten a chance to do a review of this book, there is so much information to be absorbed I don’t feel like I have given it the proper amount of time to do a nice review on it. I highly suggest taking a look at it though because Reinhart does such a wonderful and thorough job of describing the process of bread making.

When I found this recipe in Oxygen magazine I was super curious about it. I had never in my life heard of or even fathomed putting a fresh grapefruit in the oven to be broiled! 🙂 But I was so excited to test this out!

After cutting this huge beastly grapefruit in half I was astonished to find the radiant pink color!! Usually, our grapefruits are very light pink. Ava was dying to get a bite, but I insisted that we were going to try this broiling thing out.

After a long 3-4 minutes under the broiler we had the most fantastic treat imaginable!! The fruit was sooo warm and sweet with lovely vanilla soft notes and just a pinch of tartness. As we cut into the meaty sections they fell apart so delicately, much like fresh crab meat would. 🙂

We savored every bite of this beauty!!! I love it when Ava chooses Grapefruit over candy! Its the one fruit she will always choose over candy!! 🙂

Broiled Grapefruit:

*Oxygen Magazine

1 grapefruit

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat Broiler. Cut Grapefruit in half. Add 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar and vanilla to one half of the grapefruit and repeat with other half if you choose to or save it for another use. Place grapefruit in oven for 3-5 minutes until slightly brown on top and warm all the way through. Enjoy!

Sorry for the delay in the post/pictures 😦 my internet has been so messed up! We recently did an update on its really made things slow down and act weird meh!

Anyhoo, for dinner we had a huge salad with avocado, craisins, sunflower seeds, parm and a little bit of Italian dressing = SOOO out freakin’ good!! I was seriously craving Veggies. Jonathan and Ava picked up a pizza for dinner so I had a piece 🙂 It was okay!

I was getting a bit tired of seeing chips ahoy cookies in my pantry so I decided to make some old fashioned chocolate chips cookies for the family! When I started searching for recipes (gasp! I do not have a go to chocolate chip cookie recipe) I started reading the recipes and figured How hard could this be….they are chocolate chip cookies?? You have to be a moron to mess them up! right?!? hahahahhahaha….I can not tell you how furious/embarrassed I was when I these came out of my oven….

I did some fast thinking and added some flour and baking powder to the dough and they finally came out like this……

Thats what I get for following a recipe on the back of a bag…blah! But I’m sort of glad I did because these come out so perfectly!! The best/prettiest chocolate chip cookie I’ve had in a long time! I finally I have a my go to chocolate chip cookie recipe!! 🙂

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 1 minute; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Avocados have 60% more potassium than Bananas. They contain more Fiber than any other fruit. One-fifth of an avocado contains 50 calories and 20 crucial nutrients. People try to shy away from avocados due to the high fat/calorie content. What people don’t take into consideration is that avocados contain monounsaturated fat (the good kind of fat). Avocados are a great source of omega-3, helps against heart disease. So replace those fatty condiments (mayo :cringe:, sour cream, butter) with whipped avocado! Avocado also contains Lutein, which is a natural antioxidant that helps maintain eye health. Avocados are known as the “nutrient-booster” when eating with other foods avocados help your body better absorb the nutrients from the other foods! COOL! Feeling sad? EAT AN AVOCADO! With the amazing potassium content in this super food fatigue and depression can be stopped. Not only that but this fruit is loaded with vitamin E, which is great for your complexion. Woot woot a natural wrinkle fighter! REMEMBER: You are what you eat.